Caring for your feet is one of the most important "operator-level" health checks that can be performed. Foot problems that develop early on during a forced march, field problem, or
deployment that are not cared for in the early stages can hurt the soldiers ability to perform their mission.

Packer Leather has developed the new advanced Defender Mk I bovine hi-tech footwear leather in a nubuck finish to offer superior footwear performance – this is currently being used by NATO militaries, such as the Australian Defence Force, in various footwear models (one which is pictured on the right) with great success.

These leathers are specifically tanned to provide permanent water resistance, dry soft properties, fast drying rates and ultra high moisture management properties, low stretch characteristics and added sweat esistance performance. These characteristics are further explained below:

1. Strength

The bovine substrate is tanned with a specific process that increases the tearing strength of the leather to allow high durability of the product. Typically the bovine substance used is between 2.2–2.4 mm and Packer Leather ensure that the correct grain:corium ratio is balanced throughout the cross section of the leather to ensure this strength is maintained.

2. Water Resistance

The Defender has been specially treated to have a permanent water repellent technology bonded to the fibre structure. This creates superior water resistance characteristics throughout the whole cross section of the leather, allowing very high Maeser or Bally Penetrometer results to be achieved – this leather demonstrates both dynamic and static water resistance.

3. Perspiration (Sweat) Resistance & Moisture Management

A days marching can cause each foot to generate 230 grams of sweat, which is the natural mechanism to cool the foot. However sweat is detrimental to the usual military footwear leathers for two specific reasons, detanning and salt damage.

These issues are particularly prominent in warmer climates. The Defender leather has been designed to have a secondary reinforcement tannage that can resist the damaging effect from the perspiration allowing enhanced longevity of the footwear product. Coupled with this is the nubuck character of the leather that allows ultimate water vapour permeability due to no finish being applied to the leather surface and the fact that the water repellent technology coats the individual fibres leaving ventilation passages through the cross-section of the leather.

4. Comfort

Both of the footwear leathers are specifically engineered to be soft and flexible as they leave the tannery. This relates to a final article, which requires little, if any, breaking in before the soldier is confident that a full days march can be completed without any deleterious effects to his feet e.g. blisters, etc.